It was the DIY project that captured the hearts of space enthusiasts the world over - could a team of scientists really re-gain control of a long-thought dead spacecraft?

In late May they wowed us all by making first contact - but now the project has, sadly, come to an end.

Tanks on the spacecraft that were once full of nitrogen gas, needed to fire the thrusters, appear to be empty.

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A team of citizen scientists has successfully regained control of the once-thought 'dead' ISEE-3 spacecraft (illustration shown). The team made first contact with the probe in late May and has now fired the thrusters on the vehicle, with a view to flying past the moon on 10 August

ISEE-3: THE ORIGINAL MISSION

ISEE-3
was the first satellite to study the constant flow of solar wind
streaming toward Earth from a stable orbit point between our planet and
the sun known as the Lagrangian 1, or L1.

Monitoring that wind helped scientists better understand the
interconnected sun-Earth system, which at its most turbulent can affect
satellites around Earth.

In
1984, it was given a new mission and called the International Cometary
Explorer. In September 1985, it passed through the tail of Comet
Giacobini-Zinner, making it the first spacecraft to gather data from a
comet.

It also went on to
fly by Comet Halley in March 1986. From 1991 until 1997, when it was too
far away for reliable communications, this satellite continued to
investigate the sun.

Now it's coming home to visit - making its closest approach to Earth in August.

Without thrusters, there is no way to push the 36-year-old spacecraft, the International Sun-Earth Explorer-3, or ISEE-3, onto a trajectory to be captured back in Earth orbit. Instead, ISEE-3, which is otherwise in working order, will just fly by.

'Odds are, there is nothing we can do,' Keith Cowing, a leader of the effort, said.

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'We think there is a chance that the Nitrogen used as a pressurant for the monopropellant Hydrazine propulsion system may have been depleted,' the team announced on Wednesday, dashing hopes the craft could still have a fruitful life ahead of it.

It is believed it will now lose radio contact in around three months as it simply drifts further away from Earth,.

The initial burn, which took place a few days ago, involved 11 ‘pulses’ of the spacecraft’s hydrazine thrusters.

They also completed the first trajectory change for ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer), with the goal of flying past the moon on 10 August and eventually entering orbit between Earth and the Sun.

This had the goal of increasing the ‘spin’ of the spacecraft from 19.16 revolutions per minute to about 19.75, almost exactly what the original mission specifications called for.

‘In other words: bullseye,’ one of the lead scientists, Keith Cowing, writes at Space College.

The team of scientists were given
the go-ahead by Nasa to crowd-fund the revival of the seemingly 'dead'
spacecraft earlier this year.

Contact was last made with the spacecraft, called ISEE-3 (International Sun-Earth Explorer), in the late 90s.

As it approached our planet, scientists had a brief chance to communicate with the 36-year-old probe in an
attempt to bring it back to life - which they managed to do in late May.

‘The ISEE-3 Reboot Project is
pleased to announce that our team has established two-way communication
with the ISEE-3 spacecraft and has begun commanding it to perform
specific functions,’ said Cowing at the time.

First contact with ISEE-3 was achieved at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico, which is continuing to be used as a means to communicate with the probe.

The
achievement was a collaboration with a number of other organisations
and people including the staff at Arecibo and a team at the Bochum
Observatory in Germany.

In
April the ISEE-3 Reboot Project team - made up of the groups Space
College, Skycorp, and SpaceRef - undertook a successful crowd funding
project to raise £74,000 ($125,000) to rescue the probe.

Nasa
also officially endorsed the Virginia-based project and signed a space act
agreement for the group to take command and control of the 1970s-era
craft.

This is the first
time Nasa has worked on such an agreement for use of a spacecraft the
agency is no longer using or ever planned to use again.

'We
contacted the spacecraft after recreating hardware that was discarded
by Nasa decades ago using command language that was recreated from old
documents that were sitting in former employees' basements,' Cowan told MailOnline.

He also revealed how they intended to use the spacecraft for science again, and to involve citizens in it in a way not attempted before.

‘The intrepid ISEE-3 spacecraft was sent
away from its primary mission to study the physics of the solar wind
extending its mission of discovery to study two comets,’ said former Nasa
astronaut John Grunsfeld.

‘We
have a chance to engage a new generation of citizen scientists through
this creative effort to recapture the ISEE-3 spacecraft as it zips by
the Earth this summer.’

In
March, amateur radio astronomers were able to track the spacecraft and
find out its route, raising hopes that the mission could be revived.

The mission's original communication hardware no longer exists, so controlling the spacecraft required the amateur group to create virtual software versions of the original hardware. Once proving this was possible, the project is now using the Arecibo Radio Observatory (pictured) in Puerto Rico to send commands to ISEE-3

Nasa said it had shared technical data with the amateur group to help them communicate with and return data from ISEE-3.

The
mission’s original communication hardware no longer exists, so
controlling the spacecraft required the amateur group to create
virtual software versions of the original hardware.

Having done this, the project is using the Arecibo Radio Observatory in Puerto Rico to send commands to ISEE-3.

New
data resulting from the project will be shared with the science
community and the public, providing a unique tool for teaching students
and the public about spacecraft operations and data gathering.

The data also will provide valuable information about the effects of the space environment on the 36-year old spacecraft.